'I said the tone needs to be a thriller'

Nikkhil Advani on presenting a personal side to great leaders and determining the tone of his new series, 'Freedom at Midnight'

- Udita Jhunjhunwala

After producing Rocket Boys, the story of Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai and India's science and nuclear programme, Nikkhil Advani grabbed the opportunity to helm an adaptation of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins's book Freedom at Midnight. The SonyLiv series (streaming from 15 November) stars Sidhant Gupta as Jawaharlal Nehru, Chirag Vohra as Mahatma Gandhi, Rajendra Chawla as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Arif Zakaria as Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Advani, who recently directed the series Mumbai Diaries, spoke about adapting the 1975 book, which traces the last year of British rule in India, into a two-season series. Edited excerpts from the interview.

Why did you think of adapting 'Freedom at Midnight' now?

It was during a night of celebration after Rocket Boys when we were discussing what to do next and I was asked if I would like to do Freedom at Midnight, but I didn't think we would get the rights. People have tried before. Gurinder Chadha made a version called Viceroy's House, which was an unofficial version, and at the opening of Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, he does give grateful acknowledgement to Lord Mountbatten, on whose diaries the book is based. But then the producers said they have the rights and I should start thinking about what I want to do with it.

My first response was, there must be no budget. But there was a budget. The difficulty was adaptation rights, then determining the tone and what we hoped to achieve with the telling of this book. Just like the people within the book are extremely polarised, the book is extremely polarising. Historians think it's too pulpy, other people think it's a great read.